


Fireflies

by TheStingingFish



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25994221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStingingFish/pseuds/TheStingingFish
Summary: I wanted to see the baby chasing fireflies and a bedtime routine so I wrote it. Nothing else happens.
Comments: 26
Kudos: 90





	Fireflies

They stop on a planet that offers no real reason to stop there. There’s farms, a patchwork of little villages and small towns, and not much else. It’s Sorgan, or Kuill’s valley on Arvala-7, and a million other places in the galaxy, where people end up by coincidence of birth, or because they’re looking for peace. 

Din sets the  _ Razor Crest _ down in a broad valley, beyond the outskirts of a town: large enough, he hopes, to get provisions, but small enough that he will see any trouble coming long before it arrives. There are curious stares and whispers as he crosses the town square, but the shopkeepers are more than willing to sell him fresh fruit and meat, and he impulsively, maybe even foolishly, buys a small handmade blanket for the child. It’s soft, he can tell even through his gloves, pale blue like the morning sky and woven through with strands of silver. Things that soft and warm and beautiful are rare in his life and sometimes he worries that he will somehow harden this strange, beautiful child in his care. 

Back at the ship he puts away the food, cramming full the little kitchen space. Once the  _ Crest _ was designed to hold a crew of three with comfort, but a carbonite rig was far more useful for him than extra crew and living space. Before, he was always content to survive on ration bars and only fresh food when the circumstances aligned just right, but even he knew a child needed real food. For both of them, figuring out the child’s preferences was an ongoing process. He refused to stock his ship with live frogs. Beyond that, the child’s preferences seemed as arbitrary as any child’s, varying by the day. 

Today is a good day, an easy day, and the child happily slurps down the soup Din throws together. Tomorrow he may balk at it, but Din takes the successes as they come. 

When they’ve both eaten they sit outside. They’re far enough from the little town that he leaves his helmet off. It’s warm, and a breeze rustles softly through the tall grass. He sits on a cargo crate and watches as the sky turns colors, darkening with a blaze of orange on the horizon. The child sits on the ground, playing contentedly with a flexible wooden krill, a souvenir from their time on Sorgan. 

Din had never considered himself the caregiver type. He liked children fine as an idea, and often he’d relished his role within the tribe: the  _ ba’vodu _ or  _ ori’vod _ who returned with tales of adventure and little gifts from far-flung worlds. But in the end he would always leave again, disappearing into the other part of his role. Sometimes it was days, sometimes it was months, depending on the jobs. A year ago he never would have expected to have sole responsibility for a foundling. A child of his own. And yet, here they are, sitting in the dwindling light. 

“Buu,” the child says, tugging on Din’s leg and pointing. 

The air is dotted with little bioluminescent insects, blinking on and off in yellow and white, dancing with each other through the air. “They’re pretty,” Din agrees. 

The child is enthralled by them, reaching out and trying to grab one. The insects make a game of it, swooping and diving to almost within reach. The child giggles, and toddles in pursuit of his prey. 

“Be careful. Don’t get too dirty,” he says, knowing it’s going to have no effect. 

The child coos, and smiles at him, and tumbles backwards onto his bottom. He giggles, and rises. No harm done, other than the grass stains. 

It happened slowly and insidiously, but Din is now not just an expert bounty hunter and warrior, but a man who spends a considerable amount of time thinking about bathtime and hand-washing tiny little sweaters. 

The child finally realizes that if he stays still for a moment, the bugs are more than happy to land on him and investigate. But he gets too excited, moves to grab the one on his sleeve, and scares it off. 

Din holds his hand out. “Here. See?” And within a minute, a little glowing bug lands on his hand, flashing white. 

“Sometimes you need to be still, and your prey will come to you,” Din says. 

The child gazes up at him with those dark, solemn eyes. 

It’s fully dark out, now. After a good night’s rest they need to move on. There’s a chance that there’s someone on a planet called Takodana who knows the child’s species, and it’s going to take planning to figure out a safe approach. It’s a common stop leaving the Core, too populated for Din’s comfort, but he can’t ignore the lead. 

For now, though…”Bath time, you little womp rat,” Din says, and scoops the child up. The child whines, but doesn’t fuss too much over being carried into the ship. 

Inside, Din pulls off his vambraces and gloves, fills the basin with warm water, and strips off the child’s clothes. Like any child he has no modesty, and giggles as Din tickles his belly. He splashes in the warm water, and Din asks to please keep most of the water in the basin: bathtime, like meals, has been a  _ messy _ trial and error of what works. 

Soap. A wash rag. Din pays special attention to the child’s feet, because shoes are apparently not an option. He checks his body for any injuries, as he would his own, finds nothing of concern. With the sprayer, he rinses off the soap, cupping his hand around the child’s face and ears. The child leans back against Din’s arm, eyes closed. 

“Think you’re clean enough?” Din asks, and when the child gurgles, Din grabs the towel, bundling the child into it as he lifts him from the tub. He gets cold easily, and before he figured it out, the sight of the child shivering one evening had made Din feel more criminal than anything else ever had. He’s careful, rubbing the child dry before helping him into a clean sweater. He’ll re-use the soapy bath water for the dirty clothes, once the child is asleep. 

“Ready for bed?” he asks, and the child nods, and squeezes Din’s finger. Din lowers him into his cot -- makeshift, like so much else in his life, from a cargo crate, lined with an old torn-up bodysuit Din would have disposed of otherwise. There’s a brief moment of fuss until Din realizes the toy krill is still outside; once it’s retrieved, and the new blanket tucked around him, the child settles. 

“Tomorrow we get one step closer to answers,” Din says. The child is again gripping his finger, loosely this time. It’s been an exciting day and while his eyes aren’t closed yet his blinks are slow, lazy. Din smooths his hand over the child’s forehead, his ears, tucks the blanket a bit more snuggly. “Whatever we find, we’ll be together. I’m going to keep you safe. I promise.” 

It’s their nightly routine, that promise.  _ I’ll be there. I’ll keep you safe _ . He can only guess if the child truly understands -- maybe, maybe not -- but it’s a promise to himself as well. The child’s been abandoned and harmed too many times and that ends with Din. 

Slowly, the child’s eyes close. His little claws relax around Din’s finger. 

_ I’ll be there. I’ll keep you safe _ . 

**Author's Note:**

> This is Baby's First Fanfic. I don't think S2 is going to give me the level of domestic, nurturing fluff I want, so I wrote some of it. This is entirely un-proofread, please let me know about any glaring mistakes!


End file.
